Masterwork Experiment

[darkemeralds]

I'm writing a new story.

It began as an experiment. Shawn Coyne, my editing mentor, wanted to find out whether an accomplished writer (me) could create a fresh story by borrowing the deep structure of a masterwork, but changing the setting.

If I could, he would publish it.

The masterwork he chose was Annie Proulx's "Brokeback Mountain," and my task was to transpose it to Regency England.

The experiment was a success in that it did inspire me to start a new story, something I haven't been able to do for more than three years.

It was a failure, however, in that all Shawn's rules blocked me for almost nine months, and I wasn't able to break the blockage till I broke most of the rules.

Once I finally let my story diverge--from "Brokeback," from Shawn's idea of its meaning, from the scenes I'd written in the first days of the experiment, and at last, from the experiment itself--it was no longer the thing Shawn wanted. Which means Story Grid probably won't publish it.

It is the story of two lower-class men (servants) who meet on the job and fall in love. But that's where the "Brokeback" scaffolding ends. I'm changing everything else. Above all, I am not going to kill one of them. I don't think we need any more buried gays.

Instead I borrowed other stories' scaffolding: the devoted but deluded servant in The Remains of the Day. The relationship dynamic from The Untamed. Part of the ending of The Song of Achilles.

And the true-life history of Matthew Tomlinson whose 1810 diaries were recently uncovered.

I'm submitting the first act of this no-longer-anything-like-Brokeback story to a writing partner in a couple of days, and we'll see how it goes.

Comments

[tabaqui]

Wow, that sounds so interesting! So, does Mr Coyne know about fanfic?

I applaud you not kililng any more gays. As 'true' (in many ways) as Brokeback was, the story and movie were both depressing as hell. Bravo for something with a more hopeful (dare I say happy?) ending.

Good luck!

[darkemeralds]

Heh. Yeah, he knows of its existence, but it's clear that he knows nothing about it, not really.

Brokeback was a story about gay people by a straight person for straight people. It had a material impact on society (especially the movie version) and, I think, helped hasten the acceptance of same-sex marriage.

But it was 25 years ago, and I don't think a story with the same meaning needs to be told now. So yes, I'm working on a much more hopeful story about how when someone else accepts you for who you are, you can begin to accept yourself, and accept love.

I hope it'll be satisfying. I'm starting to have fun writing it.

[tabaqui]

Yes, exactly - I really hope we can move past stories like that.

True fact - I got into fanfiction way back in the early 90s because i was *so tired* of all the profic with same sex couples that were dark, depressing, hopeless, and usually ended in someone dying. Fanfic had actual love and sex and happy endings!

Your story sounds pretty interesting - something I'd definitely read. :D

[darkemeralds]

The early 90s were weird.

My own entry into fanfic was on a much less conscious path. For years, I couldn't articulate my (often guilty) attraction to it, most of which was slash.

I was interviewed on the Big Gay Fiction Podcast a while back, and they asked me why I write M/M. By then I was able to explain that as an outsider to heterosexuality myself, I find solace in depictions of queer relationships, and as an asexual person I like those relationships to be away from bodies like mine, if that makes sense.

It still doesn't make a lot of sense to me, frankly, but I sounded good on the podcast!

[tabaqui]

Hee!
Honestly, it makes sense. I'm not asexual, but - I don't really like to be touched, and i don't like or want sex probably 99% of the time. I find it just...uncomfortable to watch heterosexual (or lesbian) sex scenes (or read them), because, I guess, it's assumed i'll be interested, turned on, want to do that, whatever.

M/M sex puts no expectations on me of any kind, so it's much more freeing, interesting and...a turn on. Which i guess might be weird? WHO KNOWS.

I know i was slashing book characters for years before I even found same-sex books (I think the first time ever was Colin/Dickon in The Secret Garden).

[darkemeralds]

OMG YOU SLASHED FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT'S MASTERPIECE OMG

That's brilliant. Despite many problematic elements inherent in her century-old novels, she's a storytelling idol of mine. I've read several of her lesser-known works, and I'm, like, an expert on A Little Princess, which I adore. Though it is sadly short of boy characters and I've never been much for femmeslash.

The more I'm open about my asexuality (I really need an icon--I'll use my Sherlock one for now), the more I hear accounts like yours, which make me think the sexuality spectrum isn't NEARLY as weighted towards the Hollywood horny-het middle as Harvey Weinstein would have had us believe all those years.

Your description of your own relationship to M/M is just about perfect, including "Which I guess might be weird? WHO KNOWS." That, exactly.

[tabaqui]

ONLY IN MY HEAD! :D
*twirls you*
YES! Secret Garden and A Little Princess were and are favorites - i've read and read and read them - still do!

Oh, man - Weinstein et al's 'vision' of women, men, and sexuality is so skewed, so forced, so *boring*. OMG. I think that's the biggest factor there. It's DULL. Predictable, cliched and tropey in all the worst ways.

I think the more open we are, the easier it is to figure out just *who* we are, and what we like.

[ranunculus]

I loved Secret Garden as a kid - I think that my greatest attraction was to the garden itself....

[darkemeralds]

It was a wonderful place!

[tabaqui]

I've wanted to find a garden like that ever since I first read it. :D

[ravurian]

Hullo, love!

[darkemeralds]

Hey. I've been having fun over here. Safe space, good folks. The pandemic dragged me back and I'm sorry that's what it took.

[tabaqui]

Hey, you!
Well - I do *hope* you mean me! :D
Long time no 'see' - how are you? How is the plague treating you? I hope you and yours are well.
Up to anything new and fun? Or old and familiar?
It's nice to talk to you - you've been missed!

[ravurian]

I did indeed mean you! It's nice to see you. I've been around and about lurking, but haven't really been able to string two words together much (hear darkemeralds laugh hollowly at that, because in chat I just Will Not Shut Up).

I am working from home, having self-isolated a week or so ago. It's going okay so far - no murders yet, at least. All okay with you and yourn?

[tabaqui]

Hee, just checking. Sometimes people hit reply to a comment instead of a post and it's a little weird? But it happens.

HA! I am the same - haven't posted here in a bit, and am not terribly chatty, but spend most of my day on ICQ with my bffs Snow and Darkhavens.

I'm at home, as well - can't actually work from home, though (I work at the Fire Department), but I'm still getting paid, thank gods. We only got our county's first positive result last week, but now we're up to four and the governor *finally* started to tell everyone to shut things down. So we'll see how that goes.

Mostly everyone I know is good and safe, working from home or sadly not working (my brother is a massage therapist), so we'll see how that 'pay people money to help them' thing goes. If the GOP had their way, we'd get nothing at all (and they've publicly said if some old people have to die, well....)

SO! I watch a lot of stuff, write as much as i can, and enjoy my cats.

Glad nobody has been murdered yet! :D

[donutsweeper]

Congrats on finishing the first act!

[darkemeralds]

Thank you! It feels so good to be writing real, original fiction again. All I've written for the past three years is nonfiction (which is so much easier!) and I've missed the challenge and joy of telling a story.

[ranunculus]

That sounds like a really fun, and interesting story to write. I agree with you, we don't need to rehash Brokeback.

[darkemeralds]

That does seem to be the consensus here in fannish-land.

[ranunculus]

It is interesting, the DW site is optimized for fan fic but I don't write or even really read fan fic. For me the site is where I blog about real life. Partly to share and partly as a really handy record.

[darkemeralds]

I love it for its record-keeping quality too.

My friendslist over the years has tended fannish, but mostly I think I meant that it's a less mainstream, more nuanced kind of not-heteronormative space where most people would agree that we don't need to rehash Brokeback Mountain.

[ranunculus]

On that point I agree entirely!

[ravurian]

I am so relieved that you've recovered yourself in this. I know we've talked before about my own experience privileging someone else's opinion above my own and allowing someone to impose their voice over mine, and how detrimental that was to my writing (and how wary I am of doing that myself to others), and I am glad that you (seem to) have pushed through that and out the other side. The most saliant lesson here is, I think, that you cannot write without having something to say (even if you're not sure what that is), and you certainly can't write with someone else's hand over your mouth (or, um, somewhere else, puppeting you).

I for one would love to see what you have, but I understand that I am not always ideal for these things, being prone to Opinions.

[darkemeralds]

The self-recovery might turn out to be the most beneficial result of this weird "experiment." Part of my brief, as I think we've talked about, is to write not just the story, but about the process. While I don't think the publishing project has any real legs, if it should come about, I will try to capture the struggle and the rediscovery; the release (at first gradual, then quite sudden) of externally-applied strictures, and the return to self-as-writer.

But in returning to myself as a writer, I do find that I've brought some tools I didn't have before. The Experiment wasn't a loss or a waste at all. Not for me.

When I pull my first act together in some kind of sequence to send to my editor/publisher friend in Bath, maybe I'll work up my nerve to have you look at it too. Ha ha. Just don't line-edit me at this early stage.

[sasha_feather]

That sounds like a fabulous book!

[darkemeralds]

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I shall do my best!

[branchandroot]

That sounds more likely to result in something fresh, honestly, if you take structure from more than one work rather than sticking to one. And the deeper you get into the story, the more it /has/ to have more outgrowth in order to really be yours, yes?

(Plus, I'm one hundred percent behind refusing to bury more gays.)

Honestly, I feel like causing a sea change in what comes after is more the mark of a masterwork than anything, and that's such an organic interaction of the story and the moment and the author's awareness of both. Surely it's your own awareness of those that will create a fresh story, more than adhering to the deep structure, which seems like the least original part of any story. (Not that I'm a hardcore constructivist, or anything. ^_^)

[darkemeralds]

I'm of two minds on what makes a masterwork--whether it causes a sea change in what follows, or scintillates the world but creates no new "genre." For the latter case, I always think of Rhapsody in Blue. It didn't give rise to a whole genre of jazz symphonies (at least, that's my understanding--I am no musicologist), but it's certainly a great and enduring piece.

My intense study over the past...gosh, almost four years now has been the structure and purpose of story. Perhaps the biggest breakthrough I've had as a writer is that no, I'm never going to create something new and original. It's not only okay to feel resonances between what I write and what I've read and loved, it's necessary. The only "new" thing I can bring is the unique thumbprint of my own mind and experience, in the way I mix and present the elements.

So yes, I hope you're right that my awareness (augmented by all this intense study) will result in at least a good story, and one that isn't just some pale echo of a 25 year old masterwork.

[lyr]

It sounds like an awesome story!

[darkemeralds]

I hope it will be. Thanks.